UK pictures and other miscellaneous items of potential interest

After many problems with our crappy Mac uploader "JetPhoto Studio", we've finally gotten our good UK pictures up on Flickr. The Flickr slideshow stream on the right-hand navigation bar should be showing the last 10-15 photos we uploaded. I am still in process of naming and organizing all the pictures into their respective sets and collections, so if you check them out right away, they won't be named or have any hilarious notes written on them. We will create a set of our top ten favorite pictures from the collection once they are all organized. I'll post about it later, when we've assembled the set.

I am still in partial-recovery mode from the knee surgery last Friday. My pain meds have run out, so it's back to the grind (literally) as I work on getting my knee up to snuff for the 5K walk in a little over a week. I have an official go-ahead from my doc, so I'm not really worried about blowing the knee up right after having it worked on. There is lingering surgery pain, but the chronic pain that I had been dealing with for the past few years seems to have abated some. That, and the horrendous grinding/snapping sounds that would accompany any lateral movement of my calf have also greatly diminished. So far I have to say I'm very pleased with the outcome.

Now that I've had a few days off for medical leave, I've been able to get a some things done that have been piling up due to me being out of the state on business and plain, old procrastination. I now have an official Colorado license, I am registered to vote, washed, vacuumed, and got an oil change for the car, and have two new pairs of glasses on order. The last thing I really should do with this semi-free time is go in for a teeth cleaning. I dread this as I'm pretty sure I have a cavity that needs filling, and we have no dental insurance. Alas. Might as well get it done before they all fall out.

Nikki has been having doggy-seizures. We've always been kind of suspicious that when she stares off into the distance and her head begins to shake (like a palsy, not a foaming, rabid grand mal kind of thing), it might be a seizure. She has been having them more frequently (she had a good 5-minute one this morning), so we decided to set up an appointment with our vet to get some tests run and try out some anti-seizure medication. Another clinching thing is that Nikki is having many of the side-effects from seizures on dogs are prone to. She looses her appetite before having one (she refused to eat breakfast and even treats this morning - just before having a seizure). She'll also get restless and won't sleep. Hopefully we'll know more tomorrow when her appointment is done.

That's about it from here. We're heading out to GR next week Thursday and will be sticking around until Sunday at the earliest. I have work at the Smithsonian in DC and in Minneapolis starting that Monday, so I don't know if I'll leaving Sunday night late, or Monday morning early.

(I want one very badly.)

The Team

We woke up yesterday morning to the sound of screaming. Possibilities raced through my mind. Political protest? Horrible car accident? The rapture? I stumbled into the living room and laid out on the floor (my back has been killing me since I literally spent five hour crammed in a closet-sized space,hunched over a fried DLP light engine, with two other techies) and waited for Mandy. She came into the room and gave me a few stretching suggestions while the tone and ferocity of the screaming rose a few decibels. As I stretched my horribly out-of-shape body, Mandy looked out the window and yelled, "It's a race! There are supporters on the corners cheering the runners on!" I groaned and got up to look out the window at all of the runners. There they were, hundreds of racers plowing through the cool October drizzle, cheering and having, what seemed to be, a good time.

Later, as breakfast was prepared, the conversation kept coming around to running and wanting to get back in shape again (mostly me). And not some flabby shape, a nice, taut, visually pleasing shape. An idea is starting to form. It's very nebulous right now, but I hope it will coalesce into something concrete by, oh, around next May.

So, here's the idea. We're looking for feedback, ideas, and participants. Please comment, email, or call.

We'd like to get a group of people interesting in running (not walking) the Riverbank Run in Grand Rapids May '08. We want to create a team name, t-shirts, running support, playlist ideas, etc. The trick to doing this is to get other people interested and training. The other thing Mandy and I need is a liaison in Grand Rapids, or at least closer than an 18 hour drive, who can coordinate efforts there. Let us know soon.

If I'm going to run, anyone can do it. A couple years back I went from not being able to to run a mile, to running two 5Ks with respectable times. We have six months to get prepared. If that's enough time for people to recover from massive back injuries, it should be enough for us. We need ideas for a team name, t-shirt designs, playlist ideas, where and how to hold the necessary after race gathering, etc.

The sooner we get started the better prepared we will be. We still plan on being back in GR around Thanksgiving time, and hopefully we can plan an hour or two to meet with those of you who would like to join in on the fun!